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About Hong Kong
Hong Kong Hong Kong is not just an island; it is comprised of dozens of islands and peninsulas, covering an area bigger than New York City. Beachfront, mountain peak, bays, rivers, farm fields, reclaimed land, and of course harbors, combine to form some of the most dramatic geography of any city in the world. The climate in Hong Kong is subtropical, which means it's mostly hot, humid and often stormy. Only the desperate and insane walk voluntarily anywhere on hot summers days. In spring and autumn, temperatures hover between 70 and 85 degrees; in summer, the heat climbs well into the 90s; in winter, the average temperature is 60 degrees. Oppressive humidity saps strength during the hotter months, while gray skies are the norm from winter through spring. Summer also brings in the typhoon season from July to September. The MTR There are highways, super highways, and any number of normal roads in Hong Kong, but if you need to get there fast and cheap, you can't beat the MTR. The Hong Kong city subway system, the MTR has connected the city to such a degree that the MTR system map might be called the true map of Hong Kong. The MTR will take you anywhere you want to go... unless you are going up the mountain. The MTR is one of the busiest subway systems in the world. The busier stations can serve up to half a million passengers per day, and annual ridership is over a billion. Hong Kong Island The "island," as Hong Kong Island is popularly known, is the home base for an array of enormous banks, luxurious hotels, weirdly constructed futuristic office buildings and skyscrapers, elegant mansions, amusement parks and modern resorts. Yet it is also host to the oldest Chinese communities in the colony, whose wandering, narrow streets attest to a very different lifestyle. Quiet fishing villages snuggle alongside tourist beaches, and the clamor of crowed, floating communities is offset by peaceful hikes through the island's wilderness preserves. Neon-sheathed skyscrapers pose against the undulating green hills central to the island, thus reflecting a million colors into the dark, choppy waters below. Central Wall Rating: 9 in most places, 7 near haunts and dragon lines. The Star Ferry Pier Star Ferry pier sets green and white double-decker ferries across the harbor from Kowloon nearly five hundred times a day. These are a popular mode of travel to and from Kowloon, but also, smaller business do tourist rides and trips through the water front or private parties. On the Harbor The harbor has several businesses across its stretch. These range from upscale bars and restaurants to tourist businesses and gift shops. The Main Drags Queen's Road Central, Des Voeux Road, and Connaught Road are huge roads in terms of upscale business and restaurants. The MTR follows Des Voeux through most of the city. Statue Square Wall Rating: 6 This green park is in the foreground of the Bank of China Tower. It once held a statue of Queen Victoria, but has since become the home of numerous fountains and benches. A bit of an oasis of calm in the chaotic city. Oddly, most beings find it difficult to experience or instigate negative emotion within the square, leaving it to be a nice meeting place for late-evening negotiations. Central Market Wall Rating: 7 Central Market was a massive market for meat, fish, poultry, fruits and vegetables, first of its kind in Hong Kong. Several floors serviced thousands of customers, from housewives to five star restaurants, every day. Now, the market is a rotting, hulking shell, outclassed and undone by smaller markets across Hong Kong. The city fights with property developers over the fate of the land underneath the market, while the last remaining stalls, set up at the foot of the Mid-Level Escalators, desperately cling to the meager business that keeps them alive. The Peak Tram Station Before the advent of the Peak Tram, the trip up to Victoria Peak took three hours. Now, it takes 8 minutes. The Peak Tram climbs from its station behind the Hilton Hotel in the Central District and up to the Peak Tower over 1,000 feet above sea level. Pulled up and lowered down via 5,000 foot long cables, the Peak Tram is considered the safest transport in all of Hong Kong. In all its years, there has never been an accident, even though it is used daily by commuting workers and schoolchildren as well as tourists. The Western District The Western district was the commercial center for Chinese businesses during colonial times. While antiques, artwork, and myriad modern Chinese craft-work shops still abound, most of the district has been turned into massive high-end luxury apartment complexes. What remains is dominated by the park-like campus of Hong Kong University. Victoria Peak The place to live since early colonial days, the Peak boasts fabulous mansions offering a spectacular view of the city and harbor below. Originally dotted with cool summer homes for the wealthy, the Peak used to be almost bare rock. A concerned effort to plant greenery has transformed it into a verdant haven filled with birdsong. The only way up in early times was to walk or be carried in a sedan chair, and the racists colonists banned Chinese from living on the Peak. Now, mansions vie with apartment blocks, all jostling for position, the best view, and reputations for the phenomenal cost of owning or renting these exclusive properties. Some of the highest priced property on Earth is located near the top of the Peak. Mid-levels is the community of high-rise apartment buildings and attractive houses halfway up the Peak. The Mid Level Escalators, the nearest thing to a pedestrian superhighway, carry thousands of commuters down and up the mountain each day. Ranged around a ledge cut into the mountainside, Mid-Levels provides housing that is slightly less prestigious than that on the Peak. More development of Mid-Levels was planned at one time, but banned in the wake of the terrible (and costly) mudslides in the 1970s. Massive concrete channels were created instead, to funnel storm water away from the foundations of the skyscrapers below. Wan Chai Wan Chai (/ˌwɑːn ˈtʃaɪ/ Chinese: 灣仔) is a metropolitan area situated at the western part of the Wan Chai District on the northern shore of Hong Kong Island, in Hong Kong. Its other boundaries are Canal Road to the east, Arsenal Street to the west and Bowen Road to the south. The area north of Gloucester Road is often referred to as Wan Chai North. Wan Chai is one of the busiest commercial areas in Hong Kong with offices of many small and medium-sized companies. Wan Chai North features office towers, parks, hotels and an international conference and exhibition centre. As one of the first areas developed in Hong Kong, the locale is densely populated yet with noticeable residential zones facing urban decay. Arousing considerable public concern, the government has undertaken several urban renewal projects in recent years. There are many unique landmarks and skyscrapers within the area, most notably the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre (HKCEC), Central Plaza and Hopewell Centre. Causeway Bay Causeway Bay borders the Eastern District. Causeway Bay includes Tsing Fung Street, Causeway Bay market, the Victoria Park, the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club, Jardine's Noonday Gun, the Police Officers Club, Queen's College and the Hong Kong Central Library. Since 1982, two sub-districts of Causeway Bay (Causeway Bay North and Causeway Bay South) had been grouped into the Eastern District of district board elections, whilst Causeway Bay Middle was grouped with the Wan Chai District to the west. However, local government decisions—other than electoral demarcations—still affect the region as a whole. Since 1994, Hong Kong district board elections have further been sub-divided into smaller districts. The northern sector consists of the area around Victoria Park, the middle sector coincides with the central business district, and the southern sector forms the area around Tin Hau. To cope with population change, the constituency boundary between Wan Chai District and Eastern District was changed in the new year day of 2016. As a result, the Victoria Park and Tin Hau became a part of Wan Chai District starting from that day. As a consequence, the whole of Causeway Bay is now part of Wan Chai District. Regional and city-based government organisations, like the Causeway Bay Market, the fire station, and the Social Services Department are concentrated in the eastern part of the district, while business and shopping facilities are concentrated on the western part. Kowloon and the New Territories For all its vibrancy, Hong Kong Island is but a small part of the city of Hong Kong. The majority of the population lives across the harbor in the high density apartment blocks and developments of Kowloon. For reference, nearly all of the movies set in Hong Kong take place in Kowloon. The Walled City The Walled City is gone. It was made up of 300 interconnected 8-13 story buildings, built without the input of even a single architect, ungoverned by any health or safety regulations. A product of a bureaucratic oversight, the lawless city block that was once a Chinese fort became the densest inhabited area in the world before it was demolished in the early 1990's. Over 30,000 people (some estimate over 50,000) lived in what came to be known in the West as the City of Darkness. A hotbed of every type of crime, a refuge for every kind of criminal, it was also a peaceful home to thousands of families. Children would play on the rooftops, getting a breath of fresh air and a moment's escape from their crowded, windowless flats, while Triads trafficked in cocaine, opium, and human wares below. Eventually, both the British and Chinese authorities found the Walled City to be increasingly intolerable, despite lower crime rates in later years. The quality of life and sanitary conditions were far behind the rest of Hong Kong and eventually plans were made to demolish the buildings. Residents were paid compensation and moved out of the city by late 1992. Demolition was completed in 1994. Chungking Mansions The Walled City may be gone, but it has a modern counterpart in this massive cluster of apartment buildings in central Kowloon. Originally intended to be residential, it is now home to dozens of small shops, budget hotels, hair dressers, restaurants, money changers, and other services. These are patronized by the thousands of residents, transients, and guests, hailing from hundreds of countries. Known as one of the cheapest places to live in Hong Kong, Chungking Mansions and its collection of tourists, guest workers, students, mainlanders, and backpackers has become the most culturally diverse neighborhood in the entire city. That inexpensive reputation comes with downsides, as well. The age of the building, the diverse ownership and management structure are causes of the building's reputation for being a fire trap. Unsanitary conditions, security, ancient electrical wiring and blocked staircases all contribute to the hazards. It is also known to be a center of drugs, as well as a refuge for petty criminals. Shenzhen To the north of Kowloon and the New Territories is the land border with the People's Republic of China. The border town on the other side, Shenzhen, was a sleepy farming community as recently as 1979. Now, it is a booming metropolis, home to several of the largest tech companies on Earth, and manufacturing base for just about all of the rest. Hundreds of thousands of people cross the border in both directions every day at several crossing points; the majority of the land border is fenced, walled, moated, and patrolled with extreme vigilance. Twice as many people live in Shenzhen as Hong Kong, and the presence of these millions just across the line has altered (and in some ways, such as manufacturing base, dominated) Hong Kong in irreversible ways, both culturally and economically. The question at the back of city planners minds the last ten years has been "will Hong Kong remain a important city, or become a suburb of Shenzhen, just another Mainland city?" Water Front Navigation Creation Denizens of Hong Kong Kuei-jin Kin-Jin